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I must also present our grand public school system, with two hundred 
and twenty-five schoolhouses, thirty-five hundred teachers, and a spirit 
n the people and the youth which fire cannot destroy. 
Chicago welcomes you all to the World’s Exposition. Our material 
wdvancement has given us the opportunity to consider those higher attain- 
ments which mark the intellectual growth of a people. 
After the magnificent architectural structures of the White City have 
seen removed, the thoughts and ideas, the social, economic, and educa- 
sional problems which have been discussed from these halls, will find reali- 
zation in the lives of the people and will culminate in history. 
The National Educational Association, which was organized in Phila- 
delphia in 185%, has been a means of disseminating broader ideas of edu- 
sation. It has been an agent in shaping school legislation, and has 
brought together the men who are molding educational thought. Dur- 
ing recent years the Association has commanded the attention of the 
whole country through the great conventions which have been held in 
lifferent sections. Six years ago over ten thousand teachers gathered in 
the old Exposition Building, which stood on this spot. To-day it affords 
me great pleasure to extend greeting to the foreign representatives of 
aducation. 
In behalf of the National Educational Association of the United States, 
[ bid you all—Welcome ! 
You have come with the material exhibits of your countries. You 
nave also come to take into consideration all of those higher and greater 
departments of human effort which relate to social conditions and to the 
realm of men and minds rather than to things and matter. 
Of the many congresses that have already convened in this Memorial 
Art Palace of the Art Institute, and which may convene during the com- 
ing months, there is none that can surpass in its far-reaching effects this 
Congress of the Educators of the Youth of the World. 
There was a time when men stood unable to cope with the wind and 
wave, the light and heat and all the wondrous forces of nature. Once 
they bowed and trembled before them; now they face them and say: Be 
1till, be subdued !—and the winds and the waves are brought to do man’s 
bidding and to serve his purposes. The conquest of such forces leads us 
0 think that the words and acts of the Great Teacher are to be repro- 
Juced. He said : ““ Believe, for all things are possible.” 
Agitation, unrest, social convulsions, conflict between capital and labor, 
she struggle for self-government, characterize the life and history of the 
aations of the earth. The irrepressible conflict is the struggle of man- 
kind against all opposing forces to attain to that which is highest and 
oest. 
The stability of this country, which is a ‘government of the people, 
for the people, and by the people.” rests upon popular education; yea, pop-